Is Time Important?

MON., MAY 17, 1999, 1:21 PM
A.S.C., F.P.C.

As I have told you often, o son, I, Holy Spirit, am outside of time. I am aware of time, but I never have experienced being limited by it. Thus, when I tell you to be less concerned about time I am not speaking from experience. Now it is true that I Am One with Jesus, the Christ, and, as Jesus, I did have the “time” experience, through early adulthood. But then it is also true that I haven’t had the actual experience of growing old, slowing down, and, hence, finding Myself with “not enough time.”

Your culture is one with great concerns for time. Time can be expressed in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years. You have a watch (now taken off as a continuing symbol that this Teaching experience is “outside of time,” as I am), and there’s a clock on the wall. You have a concern that at least one alarm clock will go off in the dark of the early morning so that Lenore will be “on time” (even a bit early) for her flight to California.

So one way to perceive time is in a unit… say, a day… with the task of deciding, “What shall I do in this period of time?” The other way is to identify a task and predict what portion of time it will take. To drive to the airport… 40 minutes? Is that what it will consume? You decide to have a Teaching. You know, from experience (getting close, now, to 4,000 of these), that each takes about an hour, but they can range from 50 minutes to about 95 minutes. Will this one be within an hour, so that you won’t miss your hearing appointment? Must I “communicate” faster?

I still am urging you to “practice” being outside of time… as you will be before “too long.” We have a good deal to overcome, since you even check the time when you get up during the night. It is dark and there is no easy way to predict what time it is… and no real reason to… but you seem to want to know… how long you’ve slept? how soon will morning come? You should be able to give up this “habit.” Let the night be the night.

You soon will have lived 73 years, from the time of your birth. As you know, this is about the average age, in your culture, when earth life ends, for males, and spirit life is resumed. This is an important concept, for it does deny the importance of death in any individual life. In death your spirit moves outside of time, a return for you and many others, and thus is free from the limits of time. I know it’s hard for you to imagine this, even as I have told you such, rather often. Time is important in your form of earth life, but when the heart beats no more (70 or so beats a minute) and the blood flows no more (with sufficient but not excessive pressure) the body dies, and time’s importance diminishes and then is gone. “Time of death” is a symbol that time is important no more. Now spirit is timeless and you, for one, will recognize this condition, and appreciate it once again.

For early humans, the concept of time developed from the experience of day and night… the presence of absence of the sun… and from the seasons of the year. Time seemed to be of some importance in remembering some happening, and also in planning ahead. There had to be some symbols, some agreement on units of time, and, finally, on its importance.

( 2:07 / 3:38 )

So, yes, time is important, and especially in your culture. To be successful you must consider time quite often and utilize it wisely. I would say, however, as I observe middle-class American life, that concern for time is often excessive… too much to do… too little time. You managed fairly well, during your working life, and I have been leading you, in these last years of professional life and on into retirement, to “take time” to contemplate, to be unconcerned about “achieving,” to enjoy your chosen “uses” of time.